Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
President Vladimir Putin has admitted that Russia’s war in Ukraine could turn into a “long-term process”. Speaking to members of his personal human rights council on Wednesday, Putin sought to defend an invasion in which Russian troops have been forced to retreat and even airbases deep inside Russia have come under attack.
Putin also claimed that Russia would not use nuclear weapons first in any conflict, denied that Russian troops were deserting in mass from the field of battle, and claimed that the Russian military would not need to mobilise more troops, a process that has caused considerable upheaval in Russia.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Russia is attempting to “freeze” the fighting in Ukraine over the winter to prepare its forces for a renewed assault early next year. Stoltenberg urged Nato allies to continue sending weapons to Kyiv over the winter, adding that the conditions for a peaceful settlement to the war are “not there now”.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said 31 “suspicious packages” had been sent to Ukrainian missions in 15 countries. In the past week, Ukraine says its embassies and consultants across Europe have received “bloody” packages, some containing animal eyes, in what Kyiv has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”.
Eight people were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to a Ukrainian official. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said five people were also wounded in the attack, in which a market, bus station, petrol stations and residential buildings came under fire in the town in the Donetsk region.
A road accident in the temporarily occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk has left 16 people dead and several injured, according to a Russian-backed official and state media. The accident involved a minibus and a truck, whose passengers included soldiers, and took place between Torez and Shakhtarsk, emergency services told the Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
Ukraine’s culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, has called on the country’s western allies to boycott Russian culture. Writing in the Guardian, Tkachenko argues that a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
The European Commission has proposed a ninth package of sanctions on Russia, including adding almost 200 additional individuals and entities on the sanctions list. In a statement, the head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accused Russia of “deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure” and of continuing to “bring deaths and devastation to Ukraine”.
The US has made clear to Ukraine its “concerns” about any escalation of the war with Russia, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said. Kirby said the principle behind the war in Ukraine was one of sovereignty, and “unlike the Russians, we respect Ukrainian sovereignty”. Kirby’s comments came after Kyiv appeared to launch a pre-emptive strike on bombers on two Russian airbases far from the frontlines earlier this week.
The Kremlin has said a US military aid spending bill providing $800m to Ukraine approved by lawmakers on Tuesday was “provocation towards our country”. The Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorises the additional spending for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an increase of $500m over President Joe Biden’s request earlier this year.
Britain has ordered “several thousand” NLAW anti-tank weapons to replace the 7,000 donated to Ukraine in the past year. Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said the NLAWs played “a decisive role” in pushing back the Russian invasion, but Labour has complained that the deal took nearly 10 months to sign and the replacements will take three years to make.
BP should donate its “wartime profits” in Russia to the reconstruction of Ukraine or ministers should impose a special windfall tax on the oil company to force it to do so, British MPs have told parliament. The British oil supermajor has a 19.75% stake in Rosneft, one of the Kremlin’s most important oil assets and signalled its intent to exit Russia nine months ago, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Belarus plans to move military equipment and security forces on Wednesday and Thursday in what it says are checks on its response to possible acts of terrorism, the state Belta news agency reported. “During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces,” the news agency cited the country’s security council as saying.
At least 441 civilians were killed by Russian forces during the first weeks of the war in Ukraine, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office. Many of the bodies documented in the report bore signs that the victims may have been intentionally killed, the report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.
An Orthodox priest accused of leaking information on Ukrainian defence positions to Russia has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office. The priest from Lysychansk, in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, had been informing the Russians about the positions of Ukrainian troops since April, it said in a statement on Telegram.
Updated
The European Commission has proposed a ninth package of sanctions on Russia, including adding almost 200 additional individuals and entities on the sanctions list.
In a statement, the head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accused Russia of “deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure” and of continuing to “bring deaths and devastation to Ukraine”.
She added:
But we stand by Ukraine, and we will make Russia pay for its cruelty.
Russia continues to bring death and devastation to Ukraine.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 7, 2022
We stand by Ukraine and we are making Russia pay for its cruelty
The existing 8 packages of sanctions we introduced so far are already biting hard.
Today we are stepping up the pressure on Russia with a 9th package↓ pic.twitter.com/vWX7fkqZp0
An Orthodox priest accused of leaking information on Ukrainian defence positions to Russia has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office.
The priest from Lysychansk, in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, had been informing the Russians about the positions of Ukrainian troops since April, it said in a statement on Telegram.
The statement read:
A priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate in Luhansk region has been sentenced to twelve years in prison for informing the enemy about Ukrainian defense positions. The prosecutors proved in court that the priest from Lysychansk-based church assisted the Russian armed groups during hostilities against the Ukrainian army.
The priest “gathered information about the number and deployment of equipment, as well as the Ukrainian armed forces’ weapons in Sievierodonetsk and the neighbouring settlements”, it continued.
He then sent the information to Russian representatives via mobile messengers, it said, adding that Ukrainian officials discovered the priest’s phone correspondence.
President Vladimir Putin hinted at a “long conflict” in Ukraine at a meeting with members of his human rights council.
The Russian leader said further mobilisation at this stage wasn’t necessary as only 150,000 out of 300,000 mobilised troops were in combat.
He did however say he will use “all means” available and that the risk of nuclear war is on the rise.
Vladimir Putin has admitted that Russia’s war in Ukraine could turn into a “long-term process” as he sought to defend an invasion in which Russian troops have been forced to retreat and even airbases deep inside Russia have come under attack.
Speaking to members of his personal human rights council on Wednesday, Putin claimed that Russia would not use nuclear weapons first in any conflict, denied that Russian troops were deserting in mass from the field of battle, and claimed that the Russian military would not need to mobilise more troops, a process that has caused considerable upheaval in Russia.
But mainly the Russian president defended the “special military operation” – his preferred term for what he openly admitted was a Russian war of conquest that he compared with the territorial ambitions of former Russian tsars.
“As for the slow process of the special military operation, then, of course, it can be a long-term process,” Putin said.
But then you mentioned that new territories had appeared. This is such a significant result for Russia … The Azov Sea has become an internal Russian sea. Even Peter I had fought for access to the Azov Sea.
Russia has been forced to abandon some of those “annexed” territories, notably fleeing the city of Kherson last month due to a sweeping Ukrainian counterattack. Russia now shells the city of Kherson regularly from the other side of the Dnieper River, in effect attacking its own territory.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine.
The US has made clear to Ukraine its “concerns” about any escalation of the war with Russia, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said.
Kirby’s comments to reporters today came after Kyiv appeared to launch a pre-emptive strike on bombers on two Russian airbases far from the frontlines earlier this week.
Kirby said the principle behind the war in Ukraine was one of sovereignty, and “unlike the Russians, we respect Ukrainian sovereignty”.
The US has had conversations with Ukraine about the accountability of weapons systems “but in the end these are Ukrainian decisions that they have to make”, he said.
He added:
When we give them a weapons system, it belongs to them. Where they use it, how they use it, how much ammunition they use to use that system, those are Ukrainian decisions, and we respect that.
During a press conference with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and their Australian counterparts in Washington, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US had not “encouraged nor enabled” Ukraine to strike inside Russia.
Austin, however, said the US was not stopping Ukraine from developing its own long-range strike capability.
Russian shelling kills eight in Donetsk town, says official
Eight people were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to a Ukrainian official.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said five people were also wounded in the attack, in which a market, bus station, petrol stations and residential buildings came under fire in the town in the Donetsk region.
Russian occupation troops shelled Kurakhove, Donetsk Oblast, again on December 7, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said. As a result of the attack, 8 people were killed and 5 more were wounded. pic.twitter.com/uPwh1nsVGP
— Hromadske Int. (@Hromadske) December 7, 2022
Writing on Telegram, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian shelling killed at least six people and set buildings ablaze in the town.
He wrote:
Terrorists attacked the peaceful town of Kurakhove. Terrorists are inhuman. And they will be held to account for it.”
Updated
BP should donate its “wartime profits” in Russia to the reconstruction of Ukraine or ministers should impose a special windfall tax on the oil company to force it to do so, MPs have told parliament.
The British oil supermajor has a 19.75% stake in Rosneft, one of the Kremlin’s most important oil assets and signalled its intent to exit Russia nine months ago, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The company took a £18.7bn hit by writing off the shareholding from its books, but still owns the stock in the Russian state-controlled firm.
In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday, MPs from all parties put pressure on the government to ensure BP completely left the country.
An analysis by Global Witness shows that a dividend Rosneft has offered BP is worth an estimated £580m, or the equivalent of a third of the UK’s direct aid to Ukraine this year.
The Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, who raised an urgent question on the matter, told the Commons on Wednesday:
It is utterly shameful that a large, publicly listed British company profits from the sale of oil that is funding Putin’s war.
BP must either voluntarily donate the entirety of its Russian dividends to the reconstruction of Ukraine, or the government must take action to force them to do so.
The Guardian revealed last week that Oleg Ustenko, the chief economic adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has written to BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, to demand it cuts ties with Rosneft.
Read the full story here:
Summary of the day so far
It’s just past 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will “defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal” and warned that the threat of nuclear war is “on the rise”. In an address to his human rights council, Russia’s leader said his army’s “special military operation” in Ukraine could be a “long process”, but he saw no need to mobilise additional soldiers at this point.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Russia is attempting to “freeze” the fighting in Ukraine over the winter to prepare its forces for a renewed assault early next year. Stoltenberg urged Nato allies to continue sending weapons to Kyiv over the winter, adding that the conditions for a peaceful settlement to the war are “not there now”.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said 31 “suspicious packages” had been sent to Ukrainian missions in 15 countries. In the past week, Ukraine says its embassies and consultants across Europe have received “bloody” packages, some containing animal eyes, in what Kyiv has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”.
A road accident in the temporarily occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk has left 16 people dead and several injured, according to a Russian-backed official and state media. The accident involved a minibus and a truck, whose passengers included soldiers, and took place between Torez and Shakhtarsk, emergency services told the Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
Ukraine’s culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, has called on the country’s western allies to boycott Russian culture. Writing in the Guardian, Tkachenko argues that a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
The Kremlin has said a US military aid spending bill providing $800m to Ukraine approved by lawmakers on Tuesday was “provocation towards our country”. The Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorises the additional spending for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an increase of $500m over President Joe Biden’s request earlier this year.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said it had not “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia, after a spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities deep within Russian territory. Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility but neither did it criticise the action, which killed three people and damaged long-range bombers and a fuel depot, according to reports from Russia.
Britain has ordered “several thousand” NLAW anti-tank weapons to replace the 7,000 donated to Ukraine in the past year. Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said the NLAWs played “a decisive role” in pushing back the Russian invasion, but Labour has complained that the deal took nearly 10 months to sign and the replacements will take three years to make.
Iran has so far not delivered ballistic missiles to Russia and may not do so, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. Mykhailo Podolyak also told the Guardian that Russian forces had run short of their first batch of Iranian drones – and only had enough of their own cruise missiles in their stockpile for “two or three” more mass strikes against Ukraine.
Belarus plans to move military equipment and security forces on Wednesday and Thursday in what it says are checks on its response to possible acts of terrorism, the state Belta news agency reported. “During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces,” the news agency cited the country’s security council as saying.
At least 441 civilians were killed by Russian forces during the first weeks of the war in Ukraine, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office. Many of the bodies documented in the report bore signs that the victims may have been intentionally killed, the report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.
Good afternoon from London. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, here to bring you all the latest developments from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Putin warns risk of nuclear war ‘on the rise’
Vladimir Putin warned that the threat of nuclear war was “on the rise” while speaking during a televised annual session of his human rights council.
Putin insisted Russia had not “gone mad” and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent. He said:
We haven’t gone mad, we realise what nuclear weapons are. We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country, that’s an obvious fact. But we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.
He went on to claim that Russia “could be the only guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, adding:
It’s up to the new leaders of Ukraine.
Updated
Putin: Russia ‘will defend itself with all means at its disposal’
Vladimir Putin has said Russia will “defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal” in what he described as a “struggle for our national interests” against the west.
Putin said western rights organisations viewed his country as “a second-class country that has no right to exist at all” during a televised annual session of his human rights council. He said:
There can be only one answer from our side – a consistent struggle for our national interests. We will do just that. And let no one count on anything else.
He continued:
We will do this by various ways and means. First of all, of course, we will focus on peaceful means, but if nothing else remains, we will defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal.
The Russian leader said his army’s “special military operation” in Ukraine could be a “long process”, but he saw no need to mobilise additional soldiers at this point.
Out of the 300,000 reservists who were called up to fight in Russia’s partial military mobilisation in September and October, 150,000 were now deployed in Ukraine, Putin said.
Of those, 77,000 were in combat units and the remainder performing defensive functions, he said.
Updated
Britain has ordered “several thousand” NLAW anti-tank weapons to replace the 7,000 donated to Ukraine in the past year, prompting complaints from Labour that the deal took nearly 10 months to sign and the replacements will take three years to make.
The Ministry of Defence announced a £230m contract with Saab, the prime contractor, to make 500 in 2023 and thousands more between 2024 and 2026, demonstrating how long it can take to replenish stocks depleted by gifts to Ukraine.
Britain was one of the earliest weapons donors to Ukraine, announcing it would send over the first batch of NLAWs in January, a month before the Russian invasion. It has since donated about 7,000, although exact figures are not available.
NLAWs helped Ukraine stop the Russian advance on Kyiv in February and March, with their simplicity of use praised by the Ukrainian military. The shoulder-mounted bazookas have a range of 50 to 800m and can simply be pointed at an oncoming tank.
Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said the NLAWs played “a decisive role” in pushing back the Russian invasion. “We are continuing to fulfil our commitment to Nato by ensuring our armed forces will receive a steady supply of these weapons over the coming years,” he said.
The NLAWs will be assembled in Belfast by Thales, and the minister highlighted the contribution the contract would make in supporting British jobs.
But Labour complained about the length of time taken to sign off the deal. John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, said: “287 days after Putin’s invasion, ministers have finally got their act together.”
He said the first new NLAWs “still won’t be delivered until two years after the invasion”, and added: “It’s not clear when the MoD will sign contracts to restock other weapons and ammunition needed for the British army and to support Ukraine.”
Britain has committed £2.3bn in military aid in 2023, providing a total of 10,000 anti-tank weapons including Javelin and Brimstone missiles, NLAWs, M270 rocket artillery, 200 armoured vehicles, 28 M109 artillery guns plus almost 100,000 rounds, and 3m bullets, plus more than 25,000 sets of winter clothing.
Updated
Vladimir Putin has said there is no need for an additional call-up of Russian reservists to fight in Ukraine at the moment, Reuters reported.
Putin said that of the more than 300,000 Russian reservists who were drafted in what Moscow called a “partial mobilisation” in September and October, 150,000 were deployed in the zone of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Of those, 77,000 were in combat units and the remainder were performing defensive functions, he said.
Updated
The US has been very clear with Ukraine about accountability over weapons systems and its concerns over escalation of the war with Russia, the White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday.
“We have been consistent on our concerns over escalation. We have not encouraged them to do that,” Kirby said, after apparent Ukrainian drone strikes on two airbases deep inside Russia.
Updated
In his office in Kyiv city hall, the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, is planning for the worst and hoping for the best, Peter Beaumont writes.
The previous day, in the middle of the sixth mass Russian missile strike against Ukrainian cities that had sent Kyiv’s resident to the bomb shelters and metro stations, no rockets had made it through to hit the capital.
On the mayor’s desk is a newspaper he has had produced and distributed around the city in recent days. Bearing his name, and the headline “We will overcome and win”, it lists all the emergency services in Kyiv that will be available in case of what should be unthinkable but isn’t: the failure of all power and services to a city of 3 million in the depths of Ukraine’s winter.
Across three densely printed pages are details of supermarkets with generators that will work in that emergency, the post offices and banks, and arrangements for public transit.
It lists the 45 underground metro stations that will remain open as shelters and provide phone charging and internet, as well as tips for surviving a prolonged blackout.
“It’s for the worst-case scenario,” says Klitschko, a former world champion boxer turned politician, picking up the paper.
We need to tell people what they need to do if the situation becomes critical and they don’t have internet and connection to media.
Life in the city can often seem largely normal, outside of the massive airstrikes that have been taking place, often weekly, since 20 October. Restaurants are busy and the streets are jammed with traffic at close to prewar levels, but with the first snow on the ground and the temperature hitting -8C this week, life in the capital is also overshadowed by the risk of a humanitarian crisis.
“Thanks to our military, they knocked out all the missiles fired at Kyiv yesterday,” says Klitschko.
But it was only two weeks ago we came close to a total blackout. Then the temperature was above freezing, but imagine the same situation if it happened now when it is close to -10 outside and with no electricity water, or heating. The consequences would be disastrous.
Updated
UN: Russian forces killed at least 441 civilians, including children, in first weeks of Ukraine war
At least 441 civilians were killed by Russian forces during the first weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented summary executions and attacks in dozens of towns across three regions, and warned the actual number of victims in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions was likely to be much higher.
The report covered the beginning of Moscow’s invasion on 24 February until early April, and gathered evidence from 102 towns and villages in Ukraine.
It said:
The acts in question were committed by Russian armed forces in control of these areas and led to the deaths of 441 civilians (341 men, 72 women, 20 boys and 8 girls).
Many of the bodies documented in the report bore signs that the victims may have been intentionally killed, the report said. Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation”.
In a statement, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said:
There are strong indications that the summary executions documented in the report constitute the war crime of wilful killing.
Overall in the war through 4 December, the OHCHR said it had counted 6,702 civilian deaths, and that its monitoring includes violations by all parties.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the “spirit of Ukraine” have been named Time magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year.
TIME's 2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine #TIMEPOY https://t.co/06Y5fuc0fG pic.twitter.com/i8ZT3d5GDa
— TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2022
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said 31 “suspicious packages” had been sent to Ukrainian missions in 15 countries in what Kyiv has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”.
In the past week, Ukraine says its embassies and consultants across Europe have received “bloody” packages, some containing animal eyes, including its embassy in Madrid, which also received a letter bomb.
In a statement on his Facebook page, Kuleba wrote:
In the last two days, suspicious packages have arrived at embassies in Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Denmark, as well as consulates in Gdansk. In total, we already have 31 cases in 15 countries: Austria (1), Vatican (1), Denmark (1), Spain (5), Italy (4), Kazakhstan (1), Netherlands (1), Poland (6), Portugal (2), Romania (2), USA (1), Hungary (2), France (1), Croatia (1), Czech Republic (2).
Ukrainian embassies and consulates had been functioning “in the mode of enhanced security measures” as the “threats to our diplomats keep coming”, he said.
According to Kuleba, all envelopes “noted the same address of the sender: Tesla dealership in the German town of Sindelfingen”. He said the packages came from post offices that were not equipped with video surveillance systems.
He said the packages came from attackers who took measures not to leave traces of their DNA, adding this “indicates the professional level of embodiment of this action”.
A Ukrainian embassy employee in Madrid was injured last Wednesday by a letter bomb, which was addressed to Ukraine’s ambassador to Spain. A further four letter bombs were sent to addresses in Spain, including to a Spanish arms manufacturer that has produced rockets donated to Ukraine, as well as Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the US embassy in Madrid.
In an interview with CNN last week, Kuleba described what followed the Madrid attack as “more weird” and “even sick”.
He said after Wednesday packages started arriving at various Ukrainian diplomatic missions soaked in liquid with a distinctive smell and containing animals’ eyes.
He said:
In one case it’s most probably an eye of a cow, and an eye of a pig in another case.
Asked who he thought was behind the packages, Kuleba said he “feels tempted to name Russia” as it benefited from sowing fear among Ukrainian diplomats. But he added that it could also be someone who sympathises with Russia, so he would await the findings of ongoing investigations.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, where temperatures are below zero.
Officials have warned that half of the Kyiv region will be without electricity in the coming days, after a fresh wave of Russian missile attacks on Monday.
Updated
Russia trying to ‘freeze’ war before renewed assault, says Stoltenberg
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Russia is attempting to “freeze” the fighting in Ukraine over the winter to prepare its forces for a renewed assault early next year.
The conditions for a peaceful settlement to the war are “not there now”, the Nato chief said at an event hosted by the Financial Times, after weeks of speculation over the potential for diplomatic talks. He said:
The conditions [for talks] are not there now because Russia has shown no sign of engaging in negotiations which are respecting the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
It is for Ukrainians to decide when the time is right to start to negotiate and to agree the conditions. Most wars and most likely also this war will end at the negotiating table.
Stoltenberg urged Nato allies to continue sending weapons to Kyiv over the winter because, he warned, Russia was seeking a “break” in the fighting to prepare for a spring offensive. He said:
What we see now is that Russia is attempting to try to freeze this war, at least for a short period of time, so they can regroup, repair and recover, and try to launch a bigger offensive next spring.
Ukraine had “momentum”, he continued, adding that he “cannot go into the specific systems that we are now considering”. He said:
The paradox is that the more we want a peaceful, negotiated solution, ensuring that Ukraine prevails, the more urgent it is that we provide military support to Ukraine.
Updated
16 dead in Donetsk road accident – pro-Russia official
A road accident in the temporarily occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk has left 16 people dead and several injured, according to a Russian-backed official and state media.
The accident involved a minibus and a truck, whose passengers included soldiers, and took place between Torez and Shakhtarsk, emergency services told the Russian state-owned news agency Tass.
They were cited by Tass as saying:
On the Shakhtersk-Torez highway, a truck carrying military personnel collided with a minibus. Sixteen people died, three victims were hospitalised.
The truck driver was among the dead, the news agency reported, adding that the cause of the accident had not yet been established.
Writing on Telegram, Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said:
A tragedy on the T-0517 highway claimed the lives of 16 people, among them were some of our defenders.
Updated
Summary
The time in Kyiv is 1pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s news so far:
The US said it had not “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia, after a spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities deep within Russian territory. Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility but neither did it criticise the action, which killed three people and damaged long-range bombers and a fuel depot, according to reports from Russia. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said: “We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.”
Belarus plans to move military equipment and security forces on Wednesday and Thursday in what it says are checks on its response to possible acts of terrorism, the state BelTA news agency reported on Wednesday. “During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces,” the news agency cited the country’s security council as saying.
The Kremlin has said a US military aid spending bill providing $800m to Ukraine approved by lawmakers on Tuesday was “provocation towards our country”. The Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorises the additional spending for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an increase of $500m over President Joe Biden’s request earlier this year.
Oleksandr Starukh, the Zaporizhzhia regional governor, said on Telegram that Russia launched drone and missile strikes on two villages overnight, injuring a 15-year-old girl and two other people. The Guardian has not been able to verify the reports independently.
Ukraine’s culture minister has called on western allies to boycott Russian culture, urging a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war. Writing in the Guardian, Oleksandr Tkachenko argues that such a “cultural boycott” would not amount to “cancelling Tchaikovsky”, but would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited troops close to frontlines in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday. Addressing service personnel later in the presidential palace in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had spent the day with troops in Donbas, theatre of the heaviest battles, and in Kharkiv region, where Ukrainians have retaken swaths of territory from Russian forces.
Poland is preparing to deploy the German Patriot air defence system on its territory, after Berlin refused to place the system in Ukraine, Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Twitter. Germany last month offered Poland the Patriot system to help secure its airspace after a stray missile crashed and killed two people in Poland.
Europe is likely to scrape through this winter without cutting off gas customers despite reduced Russian supplies, but even adjusting to colder homes and paying more may not be enough in coming years, analysts have told AFP. Russia’s progressive reduction of gas supplies to Europe via pipeline triggered a bidding war for liquefied natural gas (LNG), sending prices sharply higher.
Shelling by Ukrainian forces killed at least six civilians in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk on Tuesday, according to the Russian-installed head of the separatist-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Alexey Kulemzin. The head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said Ukrainian shelling killed a deputy in the self-proclaimed republic’s People’s Council, Maria Pirogova.
Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the governor of Sumy region on the Russian border, said several people were wounded when Russian forces fired 226 shells on seven communities during the day.
The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin met senior officials on Tuesday to discuss “domestic security”, and Russia was taking “necessary” measures to fend off more Ukrainian attacks. One of the attacks struck the key Engels airfield in the Saratov region, where Russia keeps some of its strategic nuclear bombers.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for the moment. My colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Updated
The Kremlin has said a US military aid spending bill providing $800m to Ukraine approved by lawmakers on Tuesday was “provocation towards our country”.
The Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorises the additional spending for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an increase of $500m over president Joe Biden’s request earlier this year.
Ukraine’s culture minister has called on western allies to boycott Russian culture, urging a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war.
Writing in the Guardian, Oleksandr Tkachenko argues that such a “cultural boycott” would not amount to “cancelling Tchaikovsky”, but would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
He argues that such a step is right given that the war is “a civilisational battle over culture and history” in which Russia is actively “trying to destroy our culture and memory” by insisting that the two states constitute a single nation.
Many cultural figures in Ukraine have said the Russian state is actively instrumentalising its artistic heritage during the conflict. Billboards in Russian-occupied Kherson, for example, showed images of Pushkin, with text referring to the Russian poet’s link with the city.
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The US said it had not “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia, after a spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities deep within Russian territory.
“We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told reporters.
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More now on Europe’s energy crisis, via AFP:
Sky-high energy prices have caused numerous factories, particularly in Germany’s chemicals sector, which was highly dependent upon cheap Russian gas, to halt operations. But European nations were able to fill their gas reservoirs and no one has been cut off yet.
“Until February, the very idea of Europe without Russian energy was seen as impossible,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Bruegel thinktank in Brussels.
“What was impossible became possible.”
A warm autumn that allowed many consumers to put off turning on their heating also helped put Europe in better position for the winter. Overall, the reduction in EU gas consumption by consumers and industry was about 25% in October compared with the 2019-21 average for the month, according to calculations by Bruegel.
In Germany, where half of households use gas for heat, data shows consumption down by 20-35% depending on the week.
“That’s much more than anyone expected,” said Lion Hirth, a professor of energy policy at the Hertie School in Berlin.
“And that’s completely contradictory to the talk that we’ve been hearing from doomsday talkers saying, people just don’t respond. People just keep heating. People don’t change their behaviour. People don’t respond to prices.”
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Poland is preparing to deploy the German Patriot air defence system on its territory, after Berlin refused to place the system in Ukraine, Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Twitter.
Germany last month offered Poland the Patriot system to help secure its airspace after a stray missile crashed and killed two people in Poland.
The minister later asked Germany to send the fire units to Ukraine instead, Reuters reported.
“After talking to the German defence ministry, I was disappointed to accept the decision to reject Ukraine’s support. Deploying the Patriots to the western Ukraine would increase the security of Poles and Ukrainians,” Blaszczak tweeted on Tuesday evening.
“So we proceed to working arrangements for placing the launchers in Poland and connecting them to our command system.”
Po rozmowie z 🇩🇪MON,z rozczarowaniem przyjąłem decyzję o odrzuceniu wsparcia 🇺🇦. Rozmieszczenie Patriotów na zachodniej 🇺🇦 zwiększyłoby bezpieczeństwo Polaków i Ukraińców. Przystępujemy więc do roboczych ustaleń ws. umieszczenia wyrzutni w 🇵🇱i wpięcia ich w nasz system dowodzenia
— Mariusz Błaszczak (@mblaszczak) December 6, 2022
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Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia region overnight
Oleksandr Starukh, the Zaporizhzhia regional governor, posted on Telegram a short while ago to say that Russia launched drone and missile strikes on two villages overnight, injuring a 15-year-old girl and two other people.
The Guardian has not been able to verify the reports independently.
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Thousands of Russian tourists have found a friendly holiday destination on Venezuela’s Isla de Margarita, a tropical gem with white-sand shores and turquoise waters, AFP reports.
Years of political and economic turmoil in Venezuela have frightened off most tourists, with western nations warning citizens not to travel there. So for thousands of Russians seeking sun-soaked holidays, but faced with visa and flight restrictions over the Ukraine war, it is a match made in Caribbean heaven.
President Nicolás Maduro, who sees tourism as a secret weapon to revitalise an economy showing timid signs of recovery after years of hyperinflation and a currency in freefall, has signed a deal with Russia, a strong ally, to receive 100,000 tourists by 31 December.
In the past two months, 3,000 Russian tourists have taken advantage of a new direct flight between Moscow and Isla de Margarita with Russia’s Norwind Airlines.
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In news about some of the far-reaching implications of the war in Ukraine, China’s exports and imports shrank at their steepest pace in at least two and a half years in November, Reuters reports, as feeble global and domestic demand, Covid-led production disruptions and a property slump at home piled pressure on the world’s second-biggest economy.
Beijing is moving to ease some of its stringent pandemic-era restrictions, but outbound shipments have been losing steam since August as surging inflation, sweeping interest rate increases across many countries and the Ukraine crisis have pushed the global economy to the brink of recession.
The downturn was much worse than markets had forecast, and economists are predicting a further period of declining exports, underlining a sharp retreat in world trade as consumers and businesses slash spending in response to central banks’ aggressive moves to tame inflation.
Exports contracted 8.7% in November from a year earlier, a sharper fall from a 0.3% loss in October and marked the worst performance since February 2020, official data showed on Wednesday. They were well below analysts’ expectations for a 3.5% decline.
Belarus to move military equipment to 'check response to terrorism'
Belarus plans to move military equipment and security forces on Wednesday and Thursday in what it says are checks on its response to possible acts of terrorism, the state BelTA news agency reported on Wednesday.
“During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces,” the news agency cited the country’s Security Council as saying.
“The movement of citizens (transport) along certain public roads and areas would be restricted and the use of imitation weapons for training purposes is planned.”
There was no information on what parts of the country could be affected, Reuters reports.
Belarus has said it will not enter the war in neighbouring Ukraine, but President Alexander Lukashenko has in the past ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing threats to Belarus from Kyiv and the West.
Ukraine has been warning for months that it fears that Belarus and Russia could be planning a joint incursion across Ukraine’s northern border.
Last week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, to discuss military cooperation.
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Europe is likely to scrape through this winter without cutting off gas customers despite reduced Russian supplies, but even adjusting to colder homes and paying more may not be enough in coming years, analysts have told AFP.
Russia’s progressive reduction of gas supplies to Europe via pipeline triggered a bidding war for liquefied natural gas (LNG), sending prices sharply higher.
If certain countries like France and Spain froze prices for consumers, others like Belgium let suppliers more or less pass along the higher costs.
If previously natural gas was cheap and plentiful, it is now scarce and expensive.
The European wholesale reference price used to fluctuate little, hovering around 20 euros per megawatt hour. This year, it shot as high as €300 before dropping back to around €100.
“It’s the most chaotic time I’ve witnessed in all of those years,” Graham Freedman, a European gas analyst at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, told AFP.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops close to front lines in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.
Addressing servicemen later in the presidential palace in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had spent the day with troops in Donbas, theatre of the heaviest battles, and in Kharkiv region, where Ukrainians have retaken swaths of territory from Russian forces.
“Thousands of Ukrainians have given their lives so that the day might come when not a single occupying soldier will remain in our land and when all our people will be free,” Zelenskiy said.
Blinken: US has not ‘enabled’ Ukraine strikes inside Russia
The United States said Tuesday it hadn’t “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia, after a spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities deep within Russian territory. Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility but neither did it criticise the action, which killed three people and damaged long range bombers and a fuel depot, according to reports from Russia.
“We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters.
Washington has held back from supplying Ukraine forces with long-range ATACMS missiles that could strike inside Russia out of fears it could lead to a direct confrontation between Russian forces and those of the US and Nato.
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Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news as it happens for the next few hours.
It’s nearly 8am in Kyiv, here’s where things stand:
The US said Tuesday it hadn’t “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia, after a spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities deep within Russian territory. “We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters.
Russia said it had been hit hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine by what it said were Soviet-era drones - at Engels air base, home to Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, and in Ryazan, a few hours’ drive from Moscow, on Monday. Ukraine did not directly claim responsibility for the strikes but nonetheless celebrated them. The strikes killed three people and damaged long range bombers and a fuel depot, according to reports from Russia.
Shelling by Ukrainian forces killed at least six civilians in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk on Tuesday, according to the Russian-installed head of the separatist-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Alexey Kulemzin. The head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said Ukrainian shelling had killed a deputy in the self-proclaimed republic’s People’s Council, Maria Pirogova.
Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the governor of Sumy region on the Russian border, said several people were wounded when Russian forces fired 226 shells on seven communities during the day.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops close to front lines in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday. Addressing servicemen later in the presidential palace in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had spent the day with troops in Donbas and in Kharkiv region. “Thousands of Ukrainians have given their lives so that the day might come when not a single occupying soldier will remain in our land and when all our people will be free,” Zelenskiy said.
The Kremlin said Putin met senior officials Tuesday to discuss “domestic security” and said that Russia was taking “necessary” measures to fend off more Ukrainian attacks. One of the attacks struck the key Engels airfield in the Saratov region, where Russia keeps some of its strategic nuclear bombers.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he agreed with comments by Blinken about the need for lasting peace in Ukraine, but that Moscow does not see the prospect of talks “at the moment”. He added that in order for talks to happen with potential partners, Russia would need to fulfil the goals of its “special military operation”.
Russian and Ukrainian authorities confirmed the exchange of 120 people in a prisoner swap. According to the Russian defence ministry, 60 servicemen were returned from “Kyiv-controlled territory”. Ukraine received 60 prisoners in return, Andrii Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, said.
Ukraine’s health ministry has asked regional authorities to consider suspending non-essential surgeries and hospitalisations due to power blackouts. In a statement, the ministry said hospitals were continuing to provide emergency care but that planned surgeries should be temporarily suspended to ease the load on the medical system amid potential future blackouts.
US lawmakers agreed to provide Ukraine at least $800m in additional security assistance next year, according to a summary of an $858bn defense policy bill unveiled on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
At least 20 oil tankers queuing off Turkey face more delays to cross from Russia’s Black Sea ports to the Mediterranean as operators race to adhere to new Turkish insurance rules added ahead of a G7 price cap on Russian oil, Reuters reported citing industry sources. The disruption in tanker traffic was not the result of the price cap on Russian oil agreed by a coalition of G7 countries and Australia, an official with the group said.
